Week 6 – Sex and Gender

12 Replies to “Week 6 – Sex and Gender”

“ He is the Subject, he is the Absolute-she is the other( De Beauvoir P346)”. In the past, women has long history as men. But they were always treated as “ the other”. We are not minority, we are not new to this planet, we do a lot of work as men even more. But we don’t get recognitions or respects in some fields. Even we do the same jobs as men, we still get less pay. In some country’s culture, women are mentioned as somebody’s wife, daughter, mother rather than themselves. They are supposed to stay home, raise children, do the housework and take care of families. They don’t have any careers or income. So their voices are always ignored by the whole society. I think women should go to college and pursuit their own dreams in later time. Yes, they are somebody’s wife or mother, but at first, she should be herself. “Feminist movement” is necessary and urgent.

“For him she is sex, absolute sex, no less. She is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as oppose to the essential. He is the subject, he is the absolute, she is the Other.”

I picked this quote cause it shows how little people/ men think of women. They think that women are fragile or they are not built to do what a man can do. They think of men as the superior species to women, but without women there would be no men.

“They live dispersed among the males attached through residence. Housework, economic condition and social standing to certain men- fathers or husband- more firmly than they are to other women. If they belong to the bourgeoisie they feel solidarity with man of that class, not with proletarian women. If they are white, their allegiance is to white men. Not to Negro women. The proletariat can propose to massacre the ruling class, and a sufficiently fanatical Jew or Negro might dream of getting sole possession of the atomic bomb and making humanity wholly Jewish or black but the women cannot dream of exterminating the male. “

The quote is a reflection of how women are dependent to man. The author related the massive movement against the Jew and Negro to the danger of making the whole word black or Jewish. The author used a lot of the world “other’. Other is related to men. The existence of women is related to male. The belonging of women is related to the class, skin color, religious and culture. The man decided where the women should belong. The history witnessed the amount of violence that the man conducted against the female. The discrimination created a fear of specking up over the women. It created over the women feeling of the not existence of the man does not so. That why it was impossible for women to believe that they can go over men.

“Throughout history they have always been subordinated to men, and hence their dependency is not the result of a historical event or a social change – it was not something that occurred. The reason why otherness in this case seems to be an absolute is in part that it lacks the contingent or incidental nature of historical facts. […] In truth, however, the nature of things is no more immutably given, once for all, than is historical reality. if women seems to be the inessential which never becomes the essentials, it is because herself fails to bring about this change” (Beauvoir 347). This is an interesting thought which connect sex/ gender and social changes/ historical changes. I believe in today world, women is changing history with the feminist movement. In this movement, “We” is no longer just about women, “We” are everyone and anyone who agree and support that women are not “others” and women deserve to be as “essential” as any men.

“The division of the sexes is a biological fact, not an event in human history. Male and female stand opposed within a primordial Mitsein, and women have not broken it. The couple is a fundamental unity which its two halves riveted together, and the cleavage of society along the line of sex is impossible. Here is to be found, the basic trait of woman: She is the Other in a totality of which the two components are necessary to one another.”
Woman as Other. Simone De Beauvior.

“Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being.”

The author referred to the woman as the ‘’other” and under the control men using codes of law against the woman who centuries ago did not have the right to vote or role in the community except staying at home, or working under poor condition. The treatment a received was not equal or fair, the male figure was the only person who had rights and a voice to stay his opinion. During this era, woman depended on the male to make decisions in almost everything and they were rarely recognized. Today we see more equality between male and females and new laws has been created it to protect woman right to the same equality males have in our society.

“the bond that unites her to her oppressors is not comparable to any other”
Once a female is born she is automatically lower than men in society. She will grow up and be taught to depend on a man and she cannot really exist without a man. Men dominating women is something seen as normal and basically there is nothing wrong with it to most people. Women being oppressed is biological so they can’t make a good case like the proletariat. Even if they can, it would be hard for most women to come together to fight.

“If woman seems to be the inessential which never becomes the essential, it is because she herself fails to bring about this change… They have no past, no history, no religion of their own; and they have no such solidarity of work and interest that of the proletariat.” (De Beauvoir 347)
Simone De Beauvoir suggests that women themselves have never risen up like men because they are not united like them and not fight as workers do for their job. But I believe that some woman has their own past and history but it is overshadowed by the men in their lives and in society.

“Man can think of himself without woman. She cannot think of her self without man.”

I chose this quote because I think it best explains the main Idea of the reading. A woman can not have a feeling of success and self-worth without being defined by a man. You were not considered a successful woman back then if you weren’t married with children. And the husband defined a woman’s success and achievements by the kind of job he held if you married a doctor that was a great achievement rather if you married a man with a blue collar job.

“one is not born, but rather becomes a woman”
For me this quote means that the author doesn’t classify woman as a person its more like a personality. For example, people do some things that make them a “woman”

“The value of men and women can be seen as in the value of gold and silver—they are not equal but both have great value.” I agree there’s some things that a woman can do that a man will never be able to and things that a man can do that a woman will never be able to do. women are sometimes viewed as the least dominant person when comparing to men.

“As feminists we do not want to mess over people in the name of politics. We believe in collective process and a nonhierarchical distribution of power within our own group and in our vision of a revolutionary society. ”

I chose this quote because after reading the “THE COMBAHEE RIVER COLLECTIVE ” I understand that the NBFO organization’s agenda was in placed to push equality for women, particularly black women. They understood the daily hardships black woman faced. Today so often it seems as though black woman ideas are dismissed or even taken by their counterparts as their own, which some will call appropriation. Stereotypes often used by those who runs this capitalist society(white man) white women, and even black man have never truly understand the intersectionality and identity politics so often black woman face. I chose this part because I believed it described perfectly. The true meaning of black feminist movement to me. I think so often, when black women create liberation movements for just themselves it can literally be looked upon as bias, racist at times, or just secluding others. However, that is not true. Believing that everyone is equal, everyone should be able to profit from their own work, and having control of their own story is extremely important since often times it is being narrated and adjunct to others peoples experience, leavjng black women behind.